Chapter Text
“I think perhaps another drop of trolls’ tears would help…”
“Merlin, I really think the book says only three—”
BOOM!
Merlin and Morgana look at each other. Her immaculately styled up-do is standing upright, as if she’s been electrocuted, and Merlin’s sure that his eyebrows are singed too. The entire workshop is hazy with a purple smoke that is somehow strangely pleasant to breathe in.
He takes a few tentative sniffs. “Smells like… wine.”
Morgana lets out a strangled chuckle, and then they’re both bent over with laughter at their horrendously failed experiment.
“When you said you’d teach me, I did not think it meant this,” Morgana says, gasping between laughs.
“Gaius’s notes are just so confusing,” Merlin says, flipping again through the potion book the physician left him. “I promise I’m not usually this clueless.”
Now that Merlin’s been appointed court sorcerer and healing magic is widespread, Gaius found it acceptable to finally retire. He lives in Camelot still, and left all his notes and belongings to Merlin.
“You’ve done well, my boy,” he told him when he handed him a stack of hidden potion- and spellbooks from the days of yore. “I only wish Uther had been able to…”
Merlin had placed a hand on Gaius’s shoulder. Merlin himself hasn’t found much peace with Uther’s actions during his lifetime, but in helping Arthur mourn and knowing how close Gaius and he had been, Merlin has been able to settle on at least one palatable truth: “Arthur is Uther’s legacy to the world. And that’s that.”
Already, Merlin had been practicing covert magic with Morgana, whose magical abilities had begun surfacing shortly after Merlin and Arthur’s return from Haymere. But the grieving process had been difficult enough for his two children, and Merlin didn’t want to push the issue of legalizing magic onto Arthur, at least not so soon.
But Arthur surprised him when, sitting at his desk one day, he said, “Do you think I should say ‘magicks and sorceries’ or just ‘magic’? The other one sounds a bit archaic.”
Merlin looked up from the spellbook he’d been browsing on the sofa, unsure of what he was talking about. “For what?”
Arthur waved a hand at all the parchments littering his desk. “For the decree to legalize magic, obviously. The ‘k’ is just so odd-looking, I think the normal ‘magic’ makes enough sense to everyone.”
Merlin put his book aside. “You’re doing it?”
“...of course, Geoffrey will want to look at my phrasing later anyway. He’s always so nitpicky about my decree-ing word choice.”
Merlin had crossed the room and shaken Arthur by the shoulders. When Arthur looked up at him, Merlin studied his beautiful face, a face he knew by heart, for any lingering signs of grief, guilt, brokenness—anything. But Arthur only looked at him quizzically.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Merlin asked.
“Merlin.” Arthur had removed one of Merlin’s hands from his shoulders, holding it gently in his own. “I’ve been ready for a while. I miss my father still, every day. But this has been long overdue.”
Halfheartedly, Merlin resisted, “Maybe you should take some time—”
“Oh, shut up. As if I’ll ever listen to you anyway,” he said, pressing a kiss to his hand.
And so it was done. For three years now, magic has been legal in Camelot, and the kingdom has thrived. Kilgarrah—that pesky dragon—was released on the stern vow from Merlin that he wouldn’t bother the kingdom in search of vengeance, and they hadn’t seen him since. Peaceful relations had been established with the druids, and the kingdom was undergoing an economic boom, with new industries cropping up and existing ones surging with record-breaking production values and profit margins. To top it off, Arthur was a beloved king, even winning over the hearts of those strict traditional nobles who used to be so quick to defend Uther in the past. In the end, no one could argue with more money and improved general wellbeing.
“Let me look at them,” Morgana says now, nudging Merlin out of the way to study Gaius’s book. She squints at the rough handwriting on the margins. “You’re not joking. How on earth did he even write prescriptions?”
“I had to do those,” Merlin replies with a bark of lingering laughter. It’s strange now, looking back at those early years in Camelot and just how busy he was with his many, many jobs. He can hardly believe he lived like that.
Morgana has her face pressed as close to the book as she can as she decipher’s Gaius’s notes. “I think I can figure these out but I’ll need the afternoon.”
“That’s fine, I can’t stay anyway,” Merlin tells her, brushing back his electrocuted hair. He crosses the workshop—Gaius’s old one they inherited, even more littered with parchment and random herbs than it had been before—to look out the window. On the average sunny day, if it’s before noon and he cranes his neck enough, he can just about manage to make out where the sun is in the sky.
“Did you hear the bell?” he asks Morgana. He can’t see the sun, which either means his neck is really stiff or—
“Merlin!”
The door bangs open, and there’s Arthur, pouting and crossing his arms in all his kingly glory—though the crown is crooked on his head in a way that makes him look more like a disgruntled puppy with a hat than a king.
“You’re late,” Arthur informs him, pointedly.
“I was just leaving,” he says, planting a goodbye kiss on Morgana’s cheek that she distractedly waves away. He reaches Arthur and holds his face by the chin. “Miss me that much you had to storm my place of work?”
“It’s my castle,” Arthur grumbles, and Merlin sees that he’s tense, his shoulders pushed back like he’s bracing for some sort of threat. But all complaints and most of the tension seem to melt away when Merlin presses their lips together.
They must be there for longer than Merlin realizes because Morgana’s impatient voice cuts through their kiss. “Oh, get a room. I am trying to focus.”
Arthur opens his mouth and Merlin knows something indignant is going to come out of it. So he chirps out a little “Sorry!” before shoving Arthur down the hall.
“I am sorry,” Merlin tells him on the way to the stables. “For being late. There was… a mishap with a potion.”
“That was you?” Arthur asks with a knowing smile. “The knights all thought it was an earthquake or some sort of quest-sign. Percival’s already gone off in search of something called the Grail.”
“Let him go. You knights need something to do besides polish your egos and armor.”
“I’ll have you know, Merlin, quests are absolutely essential for the survival of this kingdom,” Arthur says haughtily.
“Of course,” Merlin says in a sing-song voice, patting Arthur condescendingly on his chest. But they’re beaming at each other as they enter the stables.
A stable boy runs up to them, giving Arthur a little bow. “Your Majesty. Your steeds are ready, as you requested.”
“Thank you, Wynn,” Arthur says, tossing a coin into the air for the boy to catch. “If anyone comes looking for me, you know what to tell them.”
“Yes, sire.” The boy holds the coin tightly in his hand and recites, “That you are out on personal, private business, and should anyone disturb the king, they will see themselves equally disturbed by whatever means the king deems fit, at a time of his choosing, which may or may not involve the stocks—”
“Okay!” Arthur interrupts, ruffling the boy affectionately on the head. “You got it.”
Merlin has an eyebrow raised from this interaction, and Arthur chuckles. Then he takes Merlin’s hand and presses a kiss to it as if in answer.
It’s not like Merlin’s a complete idiot. He knows what’s coming—it’s hard not to speculate when the entire castle is already speculating and the facts are as follows: Merlin’s been with the other half of his soul, also, conveniently, the king, for five years and said other half of his soul makes time for an afternoon ride on a glorious spring day. But he’ll give Arthur the benefit of a surprised reaction.
He pulls his hand away from Arthur’s lips and pinches his cheek in response. “Let’s go,” he tells a blinking Arthur. “Turnip has a lot to say.”
~
“Turnip has a lot to say.”
Ah, yes. Turnip. That headstrong, dependable mare with whom Arthur has had many interesting conversations with. Arthur has never and will never tire of watching Merlin use magic. The first time he cast that speak-with-animals spell so that Arthur could join in the conversations, Arthur was struck at how easy and natural it seemed, like he was always meant to understand animals this way and that his normal way of being was an obstruction of that flow.
That said, he isn’t particularly keen on hearing Turnip’s very loud opinions on this specific ride. The fact that Merlin assumed so is a good sign, though. It means he doesn’t suspect anything.
Now, the key is to not make it anymore suspicious.
“Merlin,” Arthur says, reaching for Merlin’s wrist. He looks back at him expectantly, and Arthur scrambles for a lie. He swears he’s gotten better at it these days, but Merlin has always been able to see through him. He tries anyway. “Don’t—not today. Leave Turnip out of it.”
“Why?”
“She’s in a foul mood,” Arthur improvises.
“And how do you know this?”
“I can just tell,” Arthur says, gesturing at Turnip’s indifferent horse face—and if she wasn’t in a foul mood before, she definitely is now, and Arthur is grateful he can’t hear her. “And Wynn mentioned it this morning. Off her feed, kicking at the walls. I don’t fancy hearing her complain about every pebble on the road for two hours.”
Merlin studies Turnip. “She looks fine to me.”
“She’s putting on a brave face,” Arthur says. “For your benefit.”
Merlin’s mouth twitches, like he can't decide whether to smile or push it. “Fine. We'll spare her the indignity of translation. But I still want to ride her.”
So off they go, Merlin riding Turnip and Arthur on his trusted Llamrei. In the conversations he’s had with her, he was not surprised to finally know how calm and reliable her speaking voice also is. Over the years, Llamrei and Arthur have learned plenty about each other, and Arthur trusts no other mare as much. He’s drawing up plans to implement these spells into horse and knight training, so that the other knights can be this close with their steeds. Whenever he gets around to it, that is.
“Sixpence for your thoughts?”
Arthur smiles at Merlin. They’re in the fields beyond the keep walls, all wildflowers and long grass up to their stirrups. The spring sun is high overhead, and the air is pleasantly warm. Arthur shakes off his overcoat and breathes it all in. “It’s nothing. Just have a lot to think about.”
“Your round table went well?”
“Yes,” Arthur says, not liking how his second lie to Merlin today tastes on his tongue. It’s all for the surprise, he reminds himself. “The Grail. Percival.”
He would have much rather been meeting with his knights over the councilors and advisors he was forced to wrangle with instead. Who knew it would be so hard to marry the court sorcerer as the king? Apparently, it’s very difficult indeed.
“There’s no precedent for this!” one of them, an older man with an untrimmed beard to his chest, kept insisting.
“Why should that matter?” Arthur said. He wanted to scream, I’m the king, dammit! as well, but Gaius’s hand on his arm held him back.
“Because tradition matters,” the man said. “It signals stability. It keeps the people from guessing and changes from occurring too quickly.”
“If I recall,” Arthur said, his voice very cold. “That is exactly what you said in response to overturning the ban on magic. Do you think that change came too quickly?”
At that point, he had won. But it still took another full hour of futile bickering (“What do we do about the image of it, sire? The king and his sorcerer together? The scandal!”) to get all the details ironed out and ready. When the meeting finally adjourned, Arthur left the room immediately, shaking out his limbs.
Gaius had appeared beside him. Despite his age, that old man moved more quickly than many of Arthur’s knights, he wagered. Gaius looked at Arthur carefully, one eyebrow quirked up.
Arthur blew out a frustrated breath. “Whatever it is you want to ask me, Gaius, just do it.”
“You’re asking him today?”
“Yes.”
“And you would have done it anyway, regardless of how that meeting turned out.”
Arthur paused, but it was only for decorum. He knew his answer. “Yes.”
Gaius seemed pleased by Arthur’s one-word answers, humming appreciatively. “You know that he’ll say yes.”
Arthur hadn’t responded because, despite what everybody seems to say, there’s still a voice in his head that whispers constantly: he won’t say yes. He doesn’t want that, to spend the rest of his life tied like that to you and the crown and all your baggage. The meeting and all of those old bags’ protests certainly hadn’t helped, and now that Arthur’s out here with Merlin in the meadow on the perfect spring day, he feels like he’s losing his mind.
“Arthur, really,” Merlin says, snapping him out of his spiral of thoughts again. “What’s got you all worked up?”
“Nothing,” Arthur says too quickly.
Merlin pulls Turnip to a stop and gives Arthur a measured look. “Arthur.”
“It’s nothing, Merlin, I’m allowed to be quiet occasionally—”
“You’ve never been quiet in your life.”
“I’m allowed to start now.”
“Mm, no. I don’t think so,” Merlin quips. “I would miss that annoying, prattish voice of yours too much.”
Arthur suddenly wants to cry, but it’s really not the time. “Merlin,” he starts desperately. Then he realizes he’s still on his horse and that this is not how he imagined it going. So in one smooth motion, he dismounts and falls to one knee. And if his knee complains at the harsh landing, that’s a problem for later.
“Merlin,” he says again, and when he looks up at Merlin’s face shining with pure, delighted, undisguised love, he realizes he’s forgotten everything he was going to say. After a painful few seconds of silence, he wipes the back of his hand on his now-sweaty forehead and laughs derisively. “I—I had a speech prepared and everything.”
Merlin dismounts and stands before Arthur, still looking at him in that adoring way that has Arthur’s entire body shaking. “Don’t tell me that annoying, prattish voice of yours has nothing to say?”
Arthur laughs, the sound a little like a sob. “I did. I had so much. But now I can’t.”
“Your pocket.”
“Huh?”
“I trust you have something in your pocket?”
“Oh.” Arthur can’t even register the fact that the surprise—if there even was one in the first place—is utterly ruined now. His hands are shaking as they pull out the little ring box from his trouser pocket. “Merlin—” he tries again.
“Yes,” Merlin interrupts, his eyes glassy and wide. “Of course, yes, Arthur.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!” he protests weakly, because his heart is too busy rejoicing in the cool wash of relief and celebration.
“Yes, I will marry you,” Merlin clarifies. He takes out one of the gold rings from the box and places it on his finger, appraising it. “I cannot believe that this is what you were worked up about.”
“I—I was nervous! I wanted it to be perfect!”
“And it is perfect,” Merlin says, tugging on Arthur’s arm to get him to stand. Then he takes the second ring in the box and slides it gently onto Arthur’s finger, saying, “All it was missing was Turnip making a sarcastic comment about the rings.”
Behind them, Turnip lets out a long, unimpressed huff, and Llamrei, a few feet away, tosses her head as if in agreement.
“I didn’t need the spell to understand that one,” Arthur says.
“See?” Merlin says, grinning. “Sarcastic comment, right on schedule.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” Arthur says, but he’s laughing, pulling Merlin in by the tunic for a long, slow kiss—no Morgana, no council, and no decrees left to sign. It’s just the two of them and the wildflowers, finally able to exist together in the way they were always meant to.
“If only Allison could see this,” Merlin murmurs against his mouth, and Arthur laughs even harder.